


Other Worlds Than These

by poisontaster



Category: Firefly/Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Crack Crossover, Crossover, Gen, Heist, Post-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-31
Updated: 2006-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 04:24:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2215731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They’ve all got that stretched-too-thin look.  It shows in clothes just a touch too baggy, pointing up sudden weight loss, a certain tension to their shoulders, a certain wariness in their eyes.  Sheppard knows it because he sees it all too often. They’re walking wounded. John just wishes that ‘walking wounded’ didn’t so often equate to desperate and dangerous’.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Worlds Than These

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CherryIce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherryIce/gifts).



> Set post-Serenity (movie) and indeterminately in S1 for Atlantis.

Simon kneels in her field of vision. His worry eats at her like a little mouse with cheese. “ _Mei mei_ ,” he says, “are you sure you want to do this?”

She gives him a _look_. “Simon, I’m _listening._ ”

< O >

“Dr. Weir?”

Elizabeth touches her mike. “Yes, Peter?”

“We’re receiving a distress call from a ship in upper orbit. They’re requesting permission to land.”

Elizabeth looks at Sheppard. That second’s eye contact is all they need; he nods and starts back pedaling. “Ford, you’re with me,” he says as Elizabeth touches open the link again.

“Major Sheppard’s on his way,” she says.

< O >

“Well, I do appreciate you folk taking us in.” The captain—one Malcolm Reynolds—put his thumbs through his belt and saunters down the ramp. Sheppard takes note of the empty holster on his hip. “Bit of a rough ride and not many places to set down and get help.”

“This your whole crew?” Along with Ford, Sheppard’s brought another four marines. They don’t have their guns aimed, but they’re at the ready. They’ve been taken in too many times to be anything but paranoid at the prospect of unexpected guests.

Reynolds glances over his shoulder, slow and casual. “Yeah.”

Sheppard takes account. There’s the dark Amazon behind Reynolds, the one he introduced as his second, Zoe, and behind her the incongruously named Jayne. The doctor, Simon, and the woman Inara, support the mechanic, Kaylee, between them. She’s got a pretty nasty scalp lac and Carson’s on his way down to take a look at it. No one’s been able explain exactly what Inara’s position is on the ship.

They’ve all got that stretched-too-thin look. It shows in clothes just a touch too baggy, pointing up sudden weight loss, a certain tension to their shoulders, a certain wariness in their eyes. Sheppard knows it because he sees it all too often.

They’re walking wounded.

John just wishes that ‘walking wounded’ didn’t so often equate to desperate and dangerous’.

< O >

“What d’you think?” Mal scratches the side of his nose thoughtfully.

“Don’t know, sir.” Zoë keeps her voice as noncommittal as his, her body relaxed. “Folks seem a might on edge.”

Mal makes a nod of acknowledgement. “Well, that was to be expected. Still, I think we’re all right.”

“Long as River can do her part,” Zoë observes.

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Mal admits. “There is that.”

< O >

“One voice. So big,” River murmurs, wondering as she brushes her cheek over the smooth resilient wall. It hums and she hums with it, intermezzo. “Calling for so long, even in your sleep. Awake now.”

The wall warms under her and she laughs. “Like you too. Silly. Now show me.”

< O >

“Amazing!”

“What’s that?” John shifts on his feet and tries to pretend he’s not bored. It’s been several hours, and no one’s tried to kill them yet. This is turning out to be a rather atypical day in Pegasus galaxy, their new guests notwithstanding.

“What’s _really_ amazing is how this ship ever made it into the air in the first place,” Rodney answers, cutting in over Zelenka.

“Don’t go sayin’ that kind of stuff about my _měi rén_ ‘less you want to find yourself talking out the other side of your face.”

John turns his head and sees Kaylee coming out of the corridor with Ford. She’s still limping a bit, and there’s a band-aid the size of his hand on her head, but the look on her face is pure venom and in a bet between Rodney and Kaylee, John would sell out his teammate every time. It’s only on second glance that he notices she and Ford are holding hands.

Ford notices the direction of John’s glance and gets a little darker. He lets go of Kaylee’s fingers fast. “She was…uh…still feeling a bit unsteady,” Ford explains. “I didn’t want her to fall.”

“Uh-huh.” John nods sympathetically.

< O >

Inara and Simon look up and see River grinning joyfully down at them from behind the grate. “ _Mei mei_ ,” Simon says, with a nervous glance at the shut door. “what--?”

“I have the touch,” River says, and the grate falls open. She drops to the floor. There’s a bleeding scratch on her shoulder and Inara desperately wants to take a comb to her hair, but otherwise she’s fine.

Not that Inara would expect any less from the girl who’d taken out an army of Reavers single-handedly.

“She sings. So pretty.” River sounds breathless as Simon flutters over the cut on her arm, dabbing with a handkerchief from which the embroidered **S, R,** and **T** have been picked out. She looks excited and jittery, her pupils blown. “Wish you could hear, then we could dance.”

“Another time, _bao bei_ ,” Inara murmurs. She takes the fingers River extends to her and squeezes hard, concern and compassion both. “Are you ready to go?”

Another dizzy, high smile. “Oh _yes_.”

< O >

“So I says to Mal, I says, ‘I don’t think you oughta do that, he sure looks kinda pissed’, but Mal, he don’t ever listen to a word I say…hey, are you going to finish that?” Jayne reaches towards the skirt’s plate, waggling his eyebrow.

The skirt—Elizabeth—sighs and puts her chin in her hand. “No,” she says, “go ahead.”

Jayne don’t need to be told twice; he grabs the little cup of tapioca from her tray and digs in. Been a while since they ate half so well as this and he don’t see the point in not taking advantage while he’s just cooling his heels anyhow.

“It’s just ‘cause Mal’s a Browncoat,” Jayne confides, discarding the spoon with a clatter and running his finger around the cup’s inside to scoop up the last sweet dregs. “Ain’t never been quite right, you ask me, and it only gets worse come U-Day.”

Elizabeth straightens and gives him a look that reminds him of his mam. “What’s a Browncoat?”

< O >

“So.”

“So,” Mal agrees, sitting back in the chair Sheppard offered.

“I never did quite catch what you guys were doing up there, to get all damaged like that.”

Sheppard gives him a grin, easy and friendly-like. Mal’s got one just like it and he breaks it out now. Just so’s they both know they’re all friendly here.

“Don’t rightly know,” Mal says as he scratches the back of his neck. “Not even completely sure where we are now.”

“Well, why don’t you start at the beginning?” Sheppard makes a gesture with his hand and leans back til his posture’s just about a mirror of Mal’s. ‘Cept with spikier hair.

Mal shrugs. “Storm came up on us fast,” he says. “No warning. Tumbled us up like a frog in a hopper…you got frogs here?”

Sheppard makes a frustrated noise in his throat and Mal holds up his hands. “Anyhow, we come out of it almost on top of a ship. It lets out a whole bunch of other little pointy ships and suddenly we’re feeling a might unwelcome.”

“Well, you’re not the first,” Sheppard concedes.

< O >

“Too much talking,” River whispers, stroking across skin/wall. Simon and Inara think she means them. Just as well; easier to concentrate without noise on the outside too. “Make it quiet. Make them stay.”

< O >

“Major Sheppard?” Elizabeth taps her headpiece again, as if _that’s_ going to make the damn thing work. “Major Sheppard?”

Across the table, the hulking Jayne finally finishes his meal—which was really his meal, and two-thirds of hers—and wipes his mouth with his arm. Then he reaches back and pulls from somewhere the most enormous knife she’s ever seen. How the _hell_ did Sheppard miss that?

“You seem like a nice lady,” he says, a touch of regret in his voice. Elizabeth glides to her feet, hardly aware she’s doing it until the chair’s seat is bumping against her calves. Jayne rises with her and just keeps rising. “I’m real sorry to have to do this.”

He doesn’t look that sorry.

< O >

Zoë shakes out her hand. “Sir, why is it that I always seem to be doing the waylaying whilst you stand around working your jaw?”

Mal looks up at her. “Everybody knows you’re no good at small talk, Zoe. It’s not waylaying if you punch ‘em from the front. You wanna help me tie him up, here? He’s heavier than he looks.”

Zoe shrugs and grabs one of Sheppard’s arms. “Good point, sir.”

< O >

“All I’m saying, is did you _have_ to kiss him?”

Kaylee gives Simon an exasperated look as they haul Ford into the room’s closet. “That’s why they call it the Goodnight _Kiss_ , Simon,” she says. “That’s why I let Inara put all that fancy glop on my face in the first place. Too bad, though,” she says wistfully. She leans to move Ford’s leg so it won’t be twisted under him. “He’s kinda cute.” She gets a guilty look and pats Simon’s arm reassuringly. “Not as cute as you, though, ‘course.”

“Of course.”

“Too loud!” River says reproachfully.

< O >

“Y’all have been real nice and all, and we’re sorry to have to do this, but I’m gonna have to ask you and Doc Zelenka to come down outta my ship now.” Reynolds smiles, but his eyes are anything but genial and if John were here, Rodney would kick him in the ankle, because he knew it, knew it, _knew_ it.

But John is not here, and Rodney’s really not in the mood to get killed today, so he glances once at Radek, who sighs. They both put their hands up and come slowly down the ramp of the ship. “Look,” Rodney says, “I’m really quite brilliant and Radek here is nearly as smart…”

“Hey!”

“So if we could avoid putting any nasty bullet holes in the resident geniuses, I’m sure we can help you find whatever it is you’re looking for.” _At least until John gets here, hopefully with a large contingent of overly-athletic men with guns._

There’s a noise at the doorway, and the big burly one—Rodney seems to remember his name as Jane, which seemed like a really awful joke on _someone’s_ part—edges in, pulling…

“Elizabeth!” Radek sounds like _he’s_ been shot.

“Rodney, Radek.” Elizabeth sounds like they might be passing in the hallway, though she’s got that worried pinched look she gets when Rodney and John have found some particularly interesting bit of Ancient technology to investigate. In the normal run of things, that look annoys him to no end, but considering the potential disaster quotient here if they die, it seems only appropriate. “Are you all right?”

“Oh yes, just _lovely_ , thanks for asking, Elizabeth…” Rodney oofs as Radek elbows him in the side and glares, positive that the sharp boned little Czech must have broken a rib with that maneuver.

The rest of Reynolds crew comes trailing in behind Jane (which can’t _possibly_ be his real name) and Elizabeth. They’ve added another person to their ranks—a barefoot and skinny girl with tangled hair—and they’re pushing a cart of crates marked all over with the SGC logo.

Reynolds gestures with his gun and Zelenka and Rodney shuffle obediently off to the side. _John will come,_ Rodney thinks, and oh boy, when did _that_ become a comforting thought? _Any minute now. John’s going to come._

The new girl, the one with no name wanders up to him, staring with somehow vacant eyes. He wonders if she’s on drugs, if they all are. Great, just what they need…

“Not prime any more,” she says, wonderingly. “No longer divisible only by self.” Her head tips to one side and her eyes somehow seem to swim into focus, as if Rodney’s only just caught her attention. “Why don’t you listen better? She’s calling. She’s calling both of you, if you’d only listen. Stop drowning her out with the sound of your own voice.”

“River,” the doctor—ha! Doctor, Rodney’s left frontal lobe—says warningly.

“Uh-oh. They’re nervous when I say too much. I don’t think I said too much. Voice was too small, didn’t hear me anyway.” She smiles and touches his cheek. Rodney’s not much on being touched in general, let alone by potentially stoned alien hippies, but he doesn’t flinch away. “Don’t worry. The pattern repeats. Just have to pick it up at the right waystation. Go, then; there are other worlds than these.”

“Come on, l’il Albatross.” Still holding his firearm loose and easy, Reynolds takes hold of the girl’s arm and pulls her back towards their ship’s ramp. “Time to go.”

“They’ll never get the skylight to open,” Zelenka confides to Rodney. “I don’t know where they think they are going…”

The girl—River—looks up, smiles, and the ceiling parts like it’s grinning back.

< O >

“Okay, tell me how bad it was.” Elizabeth is icing her wrenched knee with a pack identical to the one Major Sheppard’s holding to the back of his head. Rodney has retired to his lab in a hysterical snit, leaving Radek to conduct the debrief. Which is just as well, since Radek feels the need to keep Elizabeth where he can see her for as long as she’ll allow.

“Not so bad,” he admits judiciously. “Communications and all door locks seem to have returned to their normal function. Our ZPM module is intact and functioning normally. Diagnostics would seem to indicate they never even approached the storage module.”

“All the armories and firearms lockers are intact as well,” Major Sheppard adds with a wince as he shifts in his chair.

“Well what did they take, then?” Elizabeth asks. Her voice is more cutting than usual, but Radek understands she’s had a trying day. He’d thought his heart would stop in his chest when that…ruffian threw her off the rising loading ramp and into Radek’s arms. It is the most graceful thing he’s ever done in his scholarly life, and the glow of it is warm.

Major Sheppard shrugs. “Foodstuffs mostly. Not even the fresh stuff. Protein packs, MREs… Some medical supplies, but nothing esoteric. Just your basic broad spectrum antibiotics and antivirals. Bandages and stuff. Nothing that Daedalus can’t bring out on its next run.”

“Well, it sounds like we got off pretty easy then,” Elizabeth sounds a little mollified.

“Other than having to listen to Rodney’s bitching for the next several weeks,” Major Sheppard agrees with a grin.

< O >

“Well wasn’t that a little slice of fun?” Mal asks, kicking out his legs and putting his feet up on the console. He’s careful not to dislodge any of Wash’s dinosaurs. They’re all careful about that.

River says nothing, tracing fractals on the floor of the cockpit with a fingertip.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for 2006 [](http://serenity-santa.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://serenity-santa.livejournal.com/)**serenity_santa**. The request: post-Serenity, caper-fic, and Kaylee/Ford.


End file.
